


My Beverly

by SophieD



Series: Star Trek TNG Beverly/Deanna [19]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Doctor - Freeform, F/F, Family, Honor, Important Things, Memories, Poe Challenge, Romance, edgar allan poe - Freeform, eulogy, friends - Freeform, life - Freeform, poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 13:13:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8329216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieD/pseuds/SophieD
Summary: Deanna remembers her friend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The challenge was to write a story referencing Edgar Allan Poe. I immediately thought of the poem Anabel Lee in reference to Beverly. It is my daughter Linden's favorite poem. She read it in middle school and introduced it to me. It always makes me want to cry and this story isn't much better I don't think.

She hesitates at the door. With a deep breath, she pulls her fingers through her grey streaked curls, trying to center herself. She spent the morning alone in meditation. Her own emotions are still raw and she needs all of the strength she can muster not to take the weight of those in the room. She can feel the sadness seeping through the cracks in the door. But there is something else there too. Love. She lets those feelings fill her with courage and resolve.

  
She strides confidently to the front of the room then pauses to survey the scene. So many people have come to pay their respects. Friends and family, of course, but also people she barely knows and some she’s never met. Wesley and Will with their families. Geordi, Miles, Keiko. The ghosts of those who are gone but not forgotten. Jean-Luc, Worf, Data, Lwaxana. She feels them all.

  
A nod of encouragement from Will and she begins.

  
“Thank you all for being here today. It is a great comfort to know that Beverly had so many friends. She was a remarkable woman who touched many with her caring and kindness. I had the honor of knowing her for almost 50 years. She was my friend, my partner, my hero. Many of you know the Betazoid word Imzadi means “beloved” but it is so much more than that.”

  
She looks to Will and he gives her another nod.

  
“To be Imzadi means to be connected in your soul, to love more than life itself. Beverly was my Imzadi. She made me better in every possible way. I cannot imagine what my life would have been if it were not for her. It would have been a sadder and lonelier life for certain without her by my side. I will miss her beautiful smile and gentle touch for the rest of my days.

  
From the day we met on The Enterprise, we were best friends. Later, that friendship turned to a deep love. Together, we traveled the galaxy, making new friends and helping those in need. After the last conflict on Arvada III, we moved to her childhood home where Beverly worked with “the lost children”, bringing them back to health, finding them loving homes, giving them the lives that she believed all children deserve. Many don’t know that Beverly herself was orphaned before being taken in by her grandmother. She always felt a great need to pay forward the kindnesses and advantages that she was given.

  
In her heart, Beverly was a healer. It was her passion and her life’s work. She first learned from her Nana during the first Arvada III disaster and later on Caldos before joining Starfleet Medical. She studied infectious disease and xenobiology. She excelled at research but her heart was always in being an “old fashioned” doctor, one who cared for her patients as if they were her own family because, for all intents and purposes, that’s what they were.

  
Most of all, Beverly loved her family. Her son Wesley, his wife Anne and their children were the loves of her life. Even more than being a mother, she loved being a grandmother and spent as much time as she could loving and spoiling her grandchildren.

  
I am touched by how many have come here today to celebrate the life of this amazing woman. I know that she was honored to call you all friends and that her life was made richer for knowing all of you as I hope yours was by her. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the love and support that you have shown me over the last few days.

  
Many of you know that Beverly was a romantic at heart. She loved ‘classic Earth literature’, especially the poets, Shakespeare, Byron, Browning and more. Her favorite was a piece by 19th century American author Edgar Allan Poe. A letter to a love lost but never forgotten. The poem is titled Anabel Lee but, my head, I hear her name. Beverly. I would like to read it for you now as it says more about how I feel than I could ever put into words.

It was many and many a year ago,  
In a kingdom by the sea,  
That a maiden there lived whom you may know  
By the name of Annabel Lee;  
And this maiden she lived with no other thought  
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and _she_ was a child,  
In this kingdom by the sea,  
But we loved with a love that was more than love—  
I and my Annabel Lee—  
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven  
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,  
In this kingdom by the sea,  
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling  
My beautiful Annabel Lee;  
So that her highborn kinsmen came  
And bore her away from me,  
To shut her up in a sepulchre  
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,  
Went envying her and me—  
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,  
In this kingdom by the sea)  
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,  
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love  
Of those who were older than we—  
Of many far wiser than we—  
And neither the angels in Heaven above  
Nor the demons down under the sea  
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul  
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams  
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;  
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes  
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;  
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side  
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,  
In her sepulchre there by the sea—  
In her tomb by the sounding sea.


End file.
